TY - JOUR
T1 - Solving a Real-World Urban Postal Service System Redesign Problem
AU - Yu, Hao
AU - Sun, Xu
AU - Solvang, Wei Deng
AU - Laporte, Gilbert
PY - 2021/5/28
Y1 - 2021/5/28
N2 - Due to recent technological advancements, more diversified customer demand, and increasingly harder competition, traditional postal service systems have experienced significant changes all over the world. In Norway, through a strategic reform called post-in-shop, undertaken in 2013, most postal services are now provided at postal service counters located in retailer stores in order to improve accessibility, operational efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. This has led to a complex decision-making problem for the redesign of urban postal service networks across the country. In this paper, a two-stage method is proposed to solve a real-world urban postal service network redesign problem. First, two location models are employed to determine the optimal locations of postal service counters. In the second stage, a simulation model is built to evaluate the urban postal service system with different location and demand allocation plans under a realistic and stochastic environment. Among other insights, our results show that the proposed two-stage method can be used to effectively improve the accessibility of postal service networks by making optimal location-allocation decisions.
AB - Due to recent technological advancements, more diversified customer demand, and increasingly harder competition, traditional postal service systems have experienced significant changes all over the world. In Norway, through a strategic reform called post-in-shop, undertaken in 2013, most postal services are now provided at postal service counters located in retailer stores in order to improve accessibility, operational efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. This has led to a complex decision-making problem for the redesign of urban postal service networks across the country. In this paper, a two-stage method is proposed to solve a real-world urban postal service network redesign problem. First, two location models are employed to determine the optimal locations of postal service counters. In the second stage, a simulation model is built to evaluate the urban postal service system with different location and demand allocation plans under a realistic and stochastic environment. Among other insights, our results show that the proposed two-stage method can be used to effectively improve the accessibility of postal service networks by making optimal location-allocation decisions.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85107608367&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1155/2021/3058472
DO - 10.1155/2021/3058472
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85107608367
SN - 1058-9244
VL - 2021
JO - Scientific Programming
JF - Scientific Programming
M1 - 3058472
ER -